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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24384853">In Sickness (To Have and to Hold)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexTirZeng/pseuds/AlexTirZeng'>AlexTirZeng</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood &amp; Manga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>An aromantic tries to write romance yeehaw, Arguably Canon Compliant, Berthold Hawkeye's A+ Parenting, Bittersweet Ending, Child Abuse, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Ishval Civil War, More bitter than sweet tbqh, Secret Relationship, Young Royai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:08:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,233</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24384853</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexTirZeng/pseuds/AlexTirZeng</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins with making breakfast - an act of kindness for his teacher's overworked daughter; a gesture of friendship, nothing more and nothing less. What it becomes is a lifelong vow. </p>
<p>Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye, and the story of a dream, a promise, and a ring.</p>
<p>Crossposted to Fanfiction.net</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In Sickness (To Have and to Hold)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Photobins/gifts">Photobins</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178816">in the mess it's made of us</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/plalligator/pseuds/plalligator">plalligator</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: I don’t own Fullmetal Alchemist</p>
<p>A/N: Hey everyone; I’d say welcome to 2020, but it’s almost June and 2020 is kind of a nightmare. I hope you and yours are all staying safe during these unpleasant and uncertain covid19 times. Speaking of which, if you live in the US and are eligible to, please register to vote. We can’t take another four years of a guy who decided disbanding the pandemic response team was a good idea.</p>
<p>Sorry for this not being a Sympathy for Monsters update – I worked on this when I needed a break from the stress of finals, and Sympathy wouldn’t have brought the same relief considering the size of the project. That said, the next two chapters of Sympathy are outlined, and I hope to have them up soonish.</p>
<p>As for this fic, it’s a long time coming. It’s a culmination of conversations I had years ago with my friends MangaGirl1357 and Pepper-Jam over on Deviantart, my being inspired by plalligator (on Ao3)’s In the Mess it’s Made of Us, and an ultimate synergizing of ideas with Kgg3443 (also on Ao3) to whom this fic is dedicated. Also, special thanks to Midnight_inParis for beta’ing this for me – love you dear!</p>
<p>Anyways, on with the fic!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Roy Mustang was twelve years old when he was apprenticed to Berthold Hawkeye. Riza Hawkeye, at the time, was nearly eleven and quiet and had altogether too much responsibility on her shoulders for her age, and while Roy wanted to be friendly, he found he had no idea how to approach her. As such, they didn’t speak much for the first week and a half that he was living at the Hawkeye house. When they did speak, the conversation couldn’t be over soon enough. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It took the same length of time, which he personally thought was embarrassingly long, for Roy to realize Ms. Hawkeye did all the work around the estate. <em>All of it</em>. She cooked, cleaned, and likely managed what she could of the garden and house repairs. In a mixed wave of guilt that he hadn’t been doing more to help out, horror that she was doing <em>everything</em>, and no small amount of respect for her work ethic, Roy set out to surprise her with breakfast. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’d meant to do it the next day, but it turned out that Ms. Hawkeye woke up at an absolutely unholy hour and that he’d need to set his alarm even earlier to beat her up. So it was the day after that found him making breakfast instead. He didn’t have Ms. Hawkeye’s skills in the kitchen, but his Aunt Chris wouldn’t have for him to be useless around the house, so he could manage scrambled eggs and toast. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The look on Ms. Hawkeye’s face when she came downstairs to find breakfast already prepared made his heart skip a beat. He promised himself to learn how to cook more complicated things, if just to see her smile at him like that again. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(His attempt at a cake for her birthday two weeks later may or may not have been a disaster, but Ms. Hawkeye’s laugh was worth it.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After that, they became fast friends. Roy learned that Ms. Hawkeye was a great fan of mystery novels, that both of them were interested in history, and that she didn’t laugh when he’d confided that he’d actually <em>liked</em> the historical romance novel his sisters had given him as a joke for the political intrigue, if not the romance. He found out she was as clever and as kind as she was competent, and that her competency extended to being a damn good shot with the shotgun out in her father’s shed. He learned that she often resented alchemy for how it consumed her father but didn’t mind when <em>Roy </em>talked about it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I like how it makes you happy,” she shrugged when he asked why. “I admire your passion. Your eyes light up. It’s...it’s nice to see.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’d worn a stupid smile on his face for the rest of the day, after that. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>And so “Mr. Mustang and Ms. Hawkeye” became “Mustang and Riza” became “Roy and Riz.” They exchanged book recommendations and studied together and tried to puzzle out the ends of the mystery novels Riza liked so much as they read them. They taught themselves to play chess out of a book and listened to records and the radio while lying on the floor of what was once probably a sitting room and was now a library. Riza took it upon herself to make it so Roy could cook more than three things, and when he’d gotten skilled enough, Roy was able to do some minor household repairs with alchemy. He found that while they didn’t exactly share a sense of humor, they certainly found one another <em>hilarious.</em> To hell with everyone who’d said his sense of humor was terrible. He and Riza could have terrible senses of humor <em>together. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was half in love with her by the end of the summer. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was on his last night there for that year when <em>it </em>happens. They’d spent the day packing his things, and now the two of them were laying on the floor of the library again, drinking some lemonade while the radio crooned. The sun was almost set, casting orange light across Riza’s face, making her skin glow and lighting her hair like gold, and <em>hell</em>, Roy’d never seen something so beautiful. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>There had been a lot of moments like that over the time he’d known her; he’d be caught in the sound of her laugh or the cleverness of her wit or the sight of her smile and the breath would be knocked out of him. He was absolutely enamored with this girl, and he thought, not for the first time, that he would like to spend the rest of his life with her. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It just seemed right.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I want to marry you one day, Riz.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>What?</em>” Riza’s eyes snapped to his. Roy blinked in response.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Oh hell. Did he just say that out loud?</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Only if you wanted to too, of course!” He jumped to say, sitting up and gesturing at her nervously. He couldn’t back out <em>now; </em>she might think he was kidding. “I - I mean - I wouldn’t want you to feel forced or anything. That’d be a pretty awful way to found a marriage. It’s just…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Honestly, what could he say that would do justice to Riza Hawkeye? He could tell her that he appreciated her no-nonsense attitude or that he loved her sense of humor or that seeing her felt like <em>coming home</em> and it’d <em>still </em>never be enough. She was <em>Riza Hawkeye</em>. She was…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“...It’s just that you’re <em>everything</em>, to me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Riza stared at him some more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re not kidding,” she breathed, quiet as a psalm, mouth dropping open. “You’re <em>serious</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He nodded. He couldn’t find any other words through the pounding of his heart in his ears - and besides, he didn’t think words would ever be <em>enough</em> to describe what he felt. It just was. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>...He really hoped he didn’t just ruin their friendship.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I think I’d like that,” Riza said, a smile breaking out across her face, and the anxiety building in Roy’s stomach evaporated. Then he was grinning too, and both of them were giggling, and one of them - he wasn’t sure who - initiated a hug. In that moment, he was the happiest he’d ever been. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>A few days later, he made her a ring out of some silver from a damaged spoon and a stone from the garden. He wasn’t a terribly skilled alchemist yet, so the edges were a little rough, but what he transmuted the stone into entranced Riza. She turned the ring back and forth in the light, watching it flicker from royal blue to rich purple and show off flashes of gold. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I love it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They didn’t talk much about it much after that, but Riza wore the ring on what turned out to be the wrong finger until she outgrew it. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It came up again when he’s eighteen, and it happened in the most unexpected way. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was quite literally the day of his eighteenth birthday when Master Hawkeye sat him and Riza down in his office. Master Hawkeye looked sickly, his body thinner and sallower than it should have been, but his glare was still intimidating as all get out. Roy fought the urge to fidget. He steadfastly did not look at Riza; Master Hawkeye wouldn’t approve of them being so much as friends, not to mention...whatever they were.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My health is waning,” Master Hawkeye said suddenly, “and I want to secure a future for my daughter.” He broke off again to eye Roy critically. “You’ll do.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I want you to marry my daughter.” Master Hawkeye said it like Roy was an idiot for not knowing what he meant. Beside him, Riza gasped. “If I die, I want to know she won’t be left with just this crumbling estate. You don’t have to love each other - hell, you don’t even have to like each other - you just have to do right by her.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Master Hawkeye wanted him to WHAT?</em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>“But sir—” he protested, and this time he did look at Riza. For once, her impeccable poker face was broken; she looked just as confused as he felt. “What about Miss Hawkeye’s say in it? I mean, she’s still only sixteen; shouldn’t this sort of thing wait until she can sign a marriage license on her own consent?” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Master Hawkeye looked at him shrewdly, head tilted. Roy wondered if he was being tested somehow. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It really matters that much to you?” Master Hawkeye asked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It does,” Roy nodded. “It really does. Besides, it’s only thirteen months of waiting; if I couldn’t handle that, I think I’d be a pretty terrible match for your daughter.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Master Hawkeye gave a haughty snort and nodded his acquiescence. Still unsure if he’d been being tested at all, Roy had a feeling that he had passed. Even if not, it was still the right thing to do, and as he caught the subtle slump of relief in Riza’s posture, it was the only thing that mattered. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“I can’t believe he did that!” Riza whispered urgently the minute they were out of her father’s study and the door was shut behind them. “He had— He had no right! No right to do that...to you...or to <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A swooping sort of ache made itself at home in Roy’s chest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Riz</em>…” Roy reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder but stopped short of touching her. “I’m so sorry.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m sorry too,” Riza sighed tiredly, but she leaned into his offered touch and brought her own hand up to rest on his arm in reciprocation. Roy smiled. They stayed like that for a while, standing in the hallway basking in the silent comfort. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re still my best friend, you know that right?” Roy said after a moment. “Nothing your father could do can change that.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know.” Riza knocked the side of her head affectionately against his shoulder as she said it, smiling softly. Roy, for the millionth time in their relationship, was reminded of why the cliche about butterflies in one’s stomach existed. But he was smiling too - blushing, if he was quite honest - and very much lost in the moment. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Perhaps that was what led him to do what he did next; he was never quite able to figure that out later, but he never found himself regretting it either. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Riz, do you still have that ring I gave you when we were kids?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What?” Riza’s eyes went wide. “I do. It’s in a box in the top drawer of my dresser. Why do you ask?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Can I borrow it?” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Um, sure?” She followed, bewildered, as he practically dragged her toward her bedroom, only stopping to get her permission before rummaging through her things. Roy clutched the ring triumphantly upon finding it, holding it up for her to see with a nigh-mad glint in his eye.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Meet me in the library in an hour, okay?” He asked, flipping the ring with a dexterity Riza found at odds with the clumsy appearance of the ring itself. She had half a mind to say no - half a mind to ask <em>what on earth he thought he was doing</em> - but the grin on his face was so earnest she couldn’t find the heart to. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Okay.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Roy spent the next hour in a flurry of preparation. The coffee table in the library needed to be set, cake needed to be sliced, hot chocolate needed to be made, candles needed to be found and lit, and - most importantly - the ring he gave Riza all those years ago needed an upgrade. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roy was a much better alchemist now than he was at twelve, and what he reshaped the ring into was an elegant yet practical thing that he thought would suit Riza perfectly. A part of him sighed in relief for the fact that he’d made the original so bulky - he hadn’t needed to waste time scrounging for more silver because of that. He sat back on his heels, picking up the ring from its place in the center of the transmutation circle and examining it in the light of the sunset.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Perfect</em>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He just hoped Riza would think so too. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>She found him like that - kneeling on the floor contemplating a ring, backdropped by flickering candles sitting sentinel over two plates of his birthday cake on the coffee table. Her jaw dropped open. Riza Hawkeye was no fool; she knew what she <em>thought</em> she was seeing - she just wasn’t sure if she <em>believed </em>it. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Roy…what are you...?” She walked towards him half in a haze, stopping at the chalk edge of the transmutation circle before him. He, slack jawed, stared up at her, like he could see something holy in her eyes as he raised himself up to one knee. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I meant it all those years ago, you know. That I wanted to marry you one day. I still do. So…” he took a deep breath, “When we’re proper adults...I don’t think my six hours really count… Riza Hawkeye, will you marry me?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She gaped at him, eyes widening despite the fact that they were filling with tears, and then she was giggling and flinging her arms around him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re an idiot,” she laughed, pressing a long kiss against his cheek. “That’s a yes, by the way.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>She felt him gasp, and then his arms were tight around her and he was laughing too. He pulled back only to slide the ring on her finger - the correct one this time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I love you,” he whispered. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I love you too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Unfortunately, that would be the last truly innocent interaction Roy and Riza would ever have. Roy expressed his intentions to join the military about two months later and his apprenticeship was over the moment Berthold overheard. Their falling out was cataclysmic - and ended with Roy packing his belongings on Berthold’s orders to <em>get out</em>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“This won’t be the end,” Roy said to Riza as he looked up at her over his travelling case. “I won’t let it be.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It isn’t. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Two years later saw Roy back in the Hawkeye house, this time dressed in his military blues, only for Berthold to die choking on his own blood minutes after his former apprentice’s arrival. Riza couldn’t do more than stare, clutching the doorframe of her father’s study to stay upright. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roy looked back at her, horror and grief and apology all in his eyes. They didn’t need to say anything, and in fact wouldn’t have had the chance to anyways, given that the next few days were full of paperwork and funeral preparations and little time to do so much as grieve. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It wasn’t until her father was well and buried that they got the chance to talk. It was an awkward, stilted thing - at least until he finally confessed <em>why </em>he’d joined the military, the dreams he had for the future of their nation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Riza’s heart squeezed in her chest. She had always known Roy was an idealist - a man with far too many dreams to truly fit the image of an alchemist - and this only confirmed it. She drew her jacket closer around her and, in a softly smiling moment of heavy anticipation, made her decision.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She hadn’t expected him to cry at the sight of her tattooed back - though in retrospect she felt she should have. He did though, trailing his fingers in a barely-there caress across the arc of her shoulder with a broken sound of her name on his lips.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Riza…” His eyes were wide with horror when she turned back to look at him, absent tears slipping down his cheeks. “Did—did he....”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She nodded in confirmation. Somewhere inside her, a barrier broke, and she wept for herself as well - acknowledging what had been done to her for what was honestly the first time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The both of them slept in Roy’s old bedroom that night, neither able to bear the thought of sleeping in Riza’s - in the <em>place where her father had maimed her</em>. They laid face to face, her wearing his greatcoat even in bed for the comforting weight of it, clutching their hands desperately between their bodies for the entire night - even when they managed to drift off into unsteady, intermittent sleep. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Ishval happened. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roy Mustang did not think about love in Ishval. Love no longer existed there - the Amestrians had driven it out, Roy himself a one-man army in their unholy crusade. No, the love in Ishval had died afraid, huddled uselessly against a crumbling wall in the face of sniper fire.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>All that existed there now was the death, the destruction, and the knowledge that this was <em>wrong</em>. So very, <em>very </em>wrong. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then, love returned to Ishval - or at least it did for Roy Mustang - and it was not a blessing or a boon. Riza Hawkeye stood pale against the desert, rifle in hand and eyes empty, looking less human than she did like a spectre or a ghost.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He had stood there in the sight of her, horror creeping in and stomach turning to stone as if he’d swallowed something gorgonic. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The woman he loved - the girl he had wanted to marry all those years ago; <em>still wanted to marry</em> - had the eyes of a killer. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Reality remained unkind.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They were no longer the Roy and Riz of the Hawkeye Estate. The Hawk’s Eye and the Hero of Ishval - names, titles that were bestowed like honors to pin on their lapels, as if they hadn’t been written in the blood of an entire nation; as if their bearers hadn’t killed the innocent - killed <em>children </em>- in their homes and in their beds to earn them - stood there instead. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It wasn’t supposed to be like this. <em>Nothing </em>was supposed to be like this. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>They were monsters, both of them - and it was his fault. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Countless lives too late, the war in Ishval ended. There was no more fighting left to be had there. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Amestrians returned home; Roy was promoted, so was Riza, and they were left wondering how to keep living with what they had done. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maes Hughes, Roy’s dearest friend next to the girl - the woman - he’d grown up beside, managed to square his shoulders, move forward, and get married. To be happy. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roy didn’t understand how that was possible; he wasn’t like Hughes. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neither was Riza. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>But the future was laid out before them regardless of if they wanted it, and so <em>forward</em> was the only way to go. There might have been no redemption for them, but there was work to be done, and by the law of equivalent exchange Roy Mustang would remake Amestris into a nation where what happened in Ishval would never happen again -  even if it killed him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Will you follow me?” He asked her, resolute. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>If it all went according to plan, it likely would. Kill him, that was; death by firing squad in an Amestris that understood what a war crime was. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“If that is what you wish, even into hell.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And Riza Hawkeye would be right there with him, until she faced the firing squad too. He loved her for it - so fiercely that it would’ve made him weep, back before everything. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>These were the only wedding vows they were ever going to get. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Till death do us part. </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A/N: I’ve loved Royai as a ship since I first read Fullmetal when I was back in middle school, and I’ve wanted to write a secret relationship fic for them for nearly as long. I’m so glad to have finally written this, though oddly enough I only have a few end comments.</p>
<p>Apparently, Manga/Brotherhood Riza has no canonical age beyond “mid to late 20s” – I kid you not I scoured for that information, and only found some hotly disputed info regarding the ’03 series. (Seriously, different people citing the same source were giving different birth years, someone else said that same source had no mention of her birthday, so I dismissed that information as not-credible). In the end, I went with her being thirteen months younger just because I felt it a reasonable age gap for the premise I’ve set up. </p>
<p>Also, sorry for the less than happy ending – I felt it was canon-compliant though. Roy and Riza seem very much to be starcrossed lovers to me. That being said! I have tentative plans for a more humorous (almost cracky), arguably canon-divergent sequel to this. I have no idea when that’ll be up, but… Just to keep you posted.</p>
<p>Anyways, thanks for reading! Have a good one!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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